The objective of this mixed methods study is to gain insights into how teachers can assist their students to become good readers who read with joy and engagement. This study describes multicultural classrooms in a low-SES (socio-economic status) Stockholm area, representing reading communities, where reading fiction is the heartbeat of classroom life. Teachers' ways of relating to their students, their methods and assessment procedures will be discussed. The creation of the classroom climate, the fun factor, parents' roles and collaborative aspects of teachers' work also protruded as major themes in the teachers' narratives. The analyses employ the concepts of the Proximal Zone of Development and Scaffolding from Vygotsky's theories, together with the concepts of weak and strong framing as well as classification from Bernstein's Code Theory. Teachers' ways of relating to phenomena such as deficit syndrome and colour blindness will be analyzed from critical perspectives. Since the practitioner's perspectives are paid much attention to, issues like the need for the employment of broad theoretical perspectives, trans-disciplinary research approaches and mixed methods will also be discussed. (Contains 4 tables.) [This research was supported by a grant from the Swedish Research Council.]

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